


terra incognita

by plastiswafers



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Catholic Guilt, Foggy's righteous indignation, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-05
Updated: 2015-09-05
Packaged: 2018-04-19 03:49:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4731806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plastiswafers/pseuds/plastiswafers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Here's the other thing: Foggy is a goddamn sucker, most especially and most potently where Matt Murdock is concerned.</p><p>"Let me get this straight," Foggy says. "An old blind man named Stick used to smack you around. When you were nine. With a <i>literal stick.</i>"</p>
            </blockquote>





	terra incognita

**Author's Note:**

> For this [prompt](http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/2760.html?thread=4579528#cmt4579528).

Here's the thing: Matt Murdock is an asshole, and he's only just beginning to learn what life is like on the receiving end of of a patented Foggy Nelson grudge, and Foggy used up all of his pity on Matt's tragic backstory the first time around—you know, what with the whole "blind boy growing up in a Catholic orphanage" thing.

Here's the other thing: Foggy is a goddamn sucker, most especially and most potently where Matt Murdock is concerned.

"Let me get this straight," Foggy says. "An old blind man named Stick used to smack you around. When you were nine. With a _literal stick._ "

"Ten," Matt says, "and he was training me. You know, teaching me to use my senses instead of just letting them go to waste. He helped me, Foggy." Matt is painfully earnest; Foggy gags a little.

Either it's too loud at Josie's, or Foggy is too drunk for this, or both.

He's thinking it's both.

"But with a _stick_ ," Foggy says, and that's the thing he's really hung up on. "When you were a child. He took you to a warehouse and hit you with a _stick_. A man named Stick did this. Stick with a stick. Isn't this the kind of shit that's supposed to end up with you on Dateline?"

"He was teaching me to defend myself."

"From what? From other stick-wielding old men? Is there some kind of cabal I need to know about?"

Matt sighs, and Foggy feels a twinge of guilt. Then Foggy tamps that twinge of guilt right back down where it belongs, because when your best friend turns out to be a masked vigilante ninja on the downlow, you get to have some righteous indignation about the man who made him that way.

"If I ever meet this guy, I'm kicking his ass," Foggy declares. "I don't care how old or blind or Mr. Miyagi-y he is. He's meeting the business end of my fists, and then I'm suing his ass off, and then I'm beating him up a second time for good measure."

Matt snorts. "Good luck with that."

 

* * *

 

Foggy should drop this.

Foggy is _definitely_ going to drop this.

"Fucking Matt Murdock," he says to himself, and walks into Macy's.

For five years, Matt Murdock was the saddest person that Foggy knew. Then, for a brief period of time, _Foggy_ became the saddest person that Foggy knew—a logistical and rhetorical nightmare only possible because of the depth of Foggy's sense of betrayal and/or capacity for emotional martyrdom—but after a few weeks, Matt catapulted back up to number one. Foggy is the master of grudges, but he's only human.

 _Fucking_ Matt Murdock.

Matt walks into his apartment and pauses, like he knows something is wrong before he even encounters it.

"I stole your spare key," Foggy says from the couch.

"I'm gathering that." He takes a few steps forward and pauses again. "Is that...a teddy bear?"

It is indeed a teddy bear. Foggy is holding it in his lap like an anchor, and not for the first time in his life, he's glad that Matt can't actually see him.

"Did Stick ever buy you a teddy bear?" he counters.

"Foggy—"

"I didn't think so." He throws the bear at Matt as hard as he can; its aerodynamically-challenged self arcs limply through the air, but Matt still catches it perfectly, because of course he does.

Matt runs his fingers through the synthetic fur almost thoughtfully. "He bought me an ice cream once, though."

"Wow, one whole ice cream? I'm in awe."

Matt's lips quirk upward—never a good sign. "It had dirt in it."

Foggy exhales loudly through his nose. "Stop fucking with me, Murdock. My fragile heart can't handle much more of this."

Matt flops down on the couch next to Foggy and leans back, conspicuously comfortable looking with the bear on his chest. "He actually bought me something else, too, now that I think of it."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah. A stick of my very own."

When Foggy reaches out to smack him on the arm, Matt doesn't even try to get away.

 

* * *

 

"Were the nuns at least nice to you?"

"The nuns were very nice."

"But they let you hang out with Stick."

"They thought Stick was good for me."

"He beat you up, dude. He thought getting a ten-year-old into serious martial arts punching was a good idea."

"It was a good idea. A better idea, at least."

"A better idea than what?"

"Letting me beat myself up instead."

Foggy groans audibly. A couple of passerby on the street turn to look at him. "Did you just make a pun? Did you just pun at me about your tragic childhood? Has Matt Murdock achieved self-awareness?"

Matt smacks him on the knee with the walking stick that he truly, totally, utterly does not need. "You realize Stick was about more than teaching me how to fight, right?"

"Enlighten me."

Matt was clearly not expecting ready acceptance; he flounders for a moment. "He taught me...how to move beyond myself. How to move beyond _things_. It's easier not to be depressed about being that blind orphan kid when you know you shouldn't want to have more than that in the first place."

Foggy doesn't look at him, and he hopes that Matt doesn't sense his pity, not when it's not really pity. It's something more like sadness. "Matt," he says. "I just want to let you know, from the very bottom of my heart, that you can want anything in the entire fucking world."

 

* * *

 

Matt sniffs the air, then raises an eyebrow. "Roses?" he says.

"Roses smell awesome," Foggy says, arms crossed over his chest. "And the office reeks like trash day more often than not. Might as well call us Nelson & Murdock & Open Sewage. I started with your desk because it's the smelliest."

Matt leaves the vase where it is.

 

* * *

 

"If I don't see you go full Augustus Gloop on that box in the next sixty seconds, I swear to God I'm gonna scream."

Matt pauses with a piece of chocolate halfway up to his lips. "I've already eaten half the box." It's nice chocolate; it's Swiss, the kind with little pictures of the Alps on the foil wrappings. It only belatedly occurs to him to wonder if Matt knows that they're there.

"Now that is a dirty lie," Foggy says. They're strewn out on opposite sides of Foggy's sectional, bits and pieces of housing law that they were ostensibly reading now strewn across the floor and coffee table. "I ate three, so you've got at least three more to go before you're up to half. Don't think I'm not watching."

Matt takes a bite, and Foggy sees the tiny sigh. Foggy knows that sigh. It's the _tastes so good_ sigh. Bingo.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd think you're buttering me up for something salacious," Matt says with a grin. "Between the chocolate and the flowers and the silk sheets? Come on, Foggy. You really think you can buy my virtue?"

("I already have silk sheets," Matt had said.

"Now you have more," Foggy had said. "You'll never have to worry about nighttime chafed nips ever again.")

"Nah," Foggy says. "If I were buttering you up, I'd be listening to the police scanner for some guy for you to go wail on. Maybe I could even help zip you up. Put you in that costume, you know. Polish the horns and everything."

Silence. Foggy sighs. "I'm just trying to look out for you, okay, buddy? My previous level of worry was based off the assumption that you were spending your evenings banging supermodels, not getting sliced up and thrown into actual dumpsters. I'm gonna fuss over you. Call it my superpower. I'm turning into my mother faster than the speed of light."

Matt takes another piece of chocolate.

 

* * *

 

It's slow in the office, what with Wilson Fisk all tidied up and their conspicuous lack of clients draining on Foggy's bank account every second of every day, and it's sticky hot, and Foggy's falling asleep at his desk like he's back in property law all over again.

Matt comes into the office with a black eye and a bruise running down his cheek and a look on his face like nothing in the world could possibly be wrong.

"Just let me do this, okay?" Foggy says, holding an ice pack to the point of impact while Matt squirms and Karen looks up from her desk every few moments, trying to pretend she's not worried and failing miserably. "I know you think that this is how it's supposed to be or whatever, but I just want you to know that it isn't."

"There was a mugging." And Matt doesn't even sound mad, just vaguely despondent, like he hears what Foggy's saying but doesn't understand what the words mean.

"I believe you," Foggy says, because he does, no matter how depressing a thought it is. "And I believe that you need to be out there. Or that you think you need to be out there. Or something like that. But can you just let me do this?"

The ice is cold on Foggy's hand. Matt doesn't say yes, but he doesn't say no, and that's just going to have to be good enough.


End file.
